Objectified
by imekitty
Summary: Danny reluctantly allows his mother to run tests on him so that she can make sure his spectral mutation isn't harming him.
1. All I am is entertainment

**Author's note:** I wrote out this exact scenario in a different fanfic from Maddie's first person perspective. But, Danny being my favorite character, I felt inspired to rewrite it from his perspective in the third person and upload it as a separate fic. But I feel so vulnerable. :/ What is it about writing angst that makes me feel this way? I guess because I internalize so much of it.

If you're already familiar with my writing and the title and summary has you wondering if this is in any way related to my other fic "Disparaged," the answer is yes! Both fanfics exist as separate entries in this Danny/Maddie world I've created. To further clarify, "Disparaged" (as a one-shot) and "Objectified" work together as part of the same story leading to one finale.

Quick update: COVER ART DRAWN BY MonsterousThings AND I JUST CAN'T EVEN BE HAPPIER. :DDDDDD

* * *

 **Objectified**

 **All I am is entertainment**

"What have you been learning in school lately?"

Danny wasn't sure how to answer this question, not now. "Um…you mean, like, specifics? Or just in general?"

He looked down at the omelet his mother had made for him. He wasn't even sure if he should eat it or not. He certainly didn't have the appetite for it.

"You're taking physics this year, right? How do you like it?"

Maddie sat across from him wearing a motherly smile. She took a bite of her own omelet. Danny opted to follow her lead and take bites whenever she did.

"I don't have the same love for science that you do," said Danny. He placed a bite in his mouth but barely tasted it as he forced himself to swallow it. "I mean, I like astronomy, but that's it."

"You know you have to know physics to be an astronomer, right?"

"I know."

"Do you still want to be an astronaut?" Her smile changed a little, almost looked teasing. "That's been your dream since you were little."

Why was she asking him about this? He knew this wasn't what she really wanted to talk about. She had discovered his secret mere hours ago, had seen him enter his room in ghost form and transform back into his human form. She had been so upset that he had kept it secret from her for over a year that she had yelled at him until her voice was hoarse.

And now, she was speaking to him as if it had all just been a hallucination.

"Of course," he said, taking a bite as she did. "I could never give up that dream. The stars are my passion."

Maddie's eyes glimmered. "You've always been passionate about what you love. You get that from me."

Danny smiled weakly and looked back down at his plate.

The rising sun was lighting the kitchen. He was still wearing the same clothes he wore the day before, had not bothered changing at all for bed after she had caught him coming back into his room in the middle of the night following his usual ghost patrol. He was beyond exhausted, was unable to sleep even when she finally stopped yelling at him and had left his room for a couple hours.

Still dressed in the exact same jumpsuit she had worn the day before, Danny could see that his mother was just as tired as he was even behind her tender smile.

"How are things with Tucker and Sam?"

Her questions were so mundane, so trivial. What was she really thinking? What did she really want to ask him? He could tell she was trying to keep things light, especially after the way she had apologized for yelling at him. She had insisted he stay home from school so that they could "talk." But then when would she ask him the questions that were really on her mind?

And usually when she kept him home from school, it meant that he was sick. Did she think he was sick?

Well, maybe he was. His stomach was certainly twisting and knotting enough. This ordinary table conversation was just far too unnerving at the moment.

What was going to happen after this? He knew his mother, a scientist, a researcher. She would not just let this go, would not just let him be.

He knew she would want to figure out exactly what he was.

"Fine," said Danny simply. "I mean, we're still friends."

"What are their dreams for the future?"

He tried his best to answer his mother's questions, but it was difficult to engage, not when he felt so uneasy, not when this scenario seemed so surreal. He had difficulty giving more than one- or two-word answers which ended up resulting in many lulls, silences that were so uncomfortable that Danny couldn't even meet her gaze until she asked him a new question.

 _What now?_ he asked her not too long ago. She had been sitting alone in the kitchen when he finally came down from his room.

He wanted to ask it again. What now? What was really going to happen from here now that she knew he was half-ghost?

When they finished eating, Maddie ignored the dishes, didn't load them or at least rinse them like she usually did. She just left them in the sink. Danny took note of this and wondered what it could possibly mean. Was she too tired? Not in the mood?

Perhaps it just meant that this was not at all a normal morning.

Upstairs, they went to their separate rooms to shower and change into new clothes. The hot water felt so good, but Danny could not fully enjoy it, not when he knew he'd shortly have to be with her again, not when he knew she'd eventually initiate the real conversation she wanted to have with him about his ghost powers.

What was this he was feeling? Fear? Dread? She had been hunting him for so long, had explicitly stated in front of him exactly what she wanted to do to him, all of the experiments she wanted to conduct on him and the procedures she wanted to put him through.

But maybe it wouldn't be so bad. She wasn't angry anymore, and maybe things would be better now that she knew. He wouldn't have to hide from her, wouldn't have to be afraid of her anymore.

Because she wouldn't hurt him now that she knew who he really was.

He wanted to believe that.

Refreshed, Danny breathed for a couple moments before finally leaving his room and entering the hall where Maddie was already waiting for him. He smiled at her, but she didn't return it. In fact, her eyes didn't meet his at all. They roamed over his face and traveled down lower. Danny chewed the inside of his cheek, uncomfortable with this silent inspection. What about him was she studying?

She approached him and placed her hands on either side of his face. He briefly recalled what it was like to have to look up at her, but now he was her height, and he knew he was rapidly getting taller. In her embrace now, Danny gazed straight ahead at her with uncertainty.

"You've become so handsome, Danny. You know that?"

He could feel himself blushing. He laughed in an attempt to deflect his embarrassment. "That's nice. My mom thinks I'm cute."

Maddie put an arm around him and started leading him downstairs. "I'm sure you're a big hit with all the girls at school."

Oh, sure. They were all just lined up for him. Danny smirked to himself as he thought about his various dating experiences and his many rejected date requests. "Not at all."

"I don't believe that. Not with the way you look! You're a regular heart throb."

Danny rolled his eyes with amusement. She had no idea just how socially awkward and tongue-tied and clumsy he became around pretty girls.

"You haven't been on any dates in a while," she observed.

Danny shrugged. "That's because…" He stopped himself. He wasn't sure if he was ready to talk about his love life with her just yet. He hadn't had this kind of conversation with her in a long time, hadn't spoken about this sort of thing with her since beginning high school.

Right now, especially after what had happened only a couple hours earlier, it just seemed like too much.

"It's Sam, isn't it?" Maddie asked with a knowing smile.

"No!" said Danny quickly. Too quickly. Was it that obvious? He turned red again.

Maddie laughed. "You've had a crush on her forever. No need to hide it."

Danny shook his head as he tried to reply. Sure, he liked Sam. He _really_ liked her. She was his best friend, and she understood him, was always there for him when he needed her. And she was certainly very pretty. Way too pretty. There were times when he couldn't stop looking at her. But he couldn't find the nerve to ask her out because someone like her deserved better and she was always berating him for developing silly crushes on so many girls so surely she would just think his crush on her was silly, too.

Wait…why were they in the basement now?

Danny looked around in tense alarm. He had been so distracted by their conversation that he hadn't realized that Maddie had been leading him to their basement lab. Maddie was gazing at the ghost portal with distant eyes.

"What are we doing here?" Danny asked uneasily. He knew there was only one thing that Maddie ever did in this room.

Maddie smiled and placed a hand on his shoulder, as if she was trying to comfort him. "Danny, sweetheart, I want to run some tests on you."

Danny stepped back so that she was no longer touching him. He had no words, no reply. He could only stare at her in disbelief.

"It's okay, Danny. I'm not going to hurt you. I'm just concerned." Maddie began looking through cabinets and drawers. She pulled out various tools and equipment, beakers and flasks and tubes and vials and electrodes and syringes and needles—

"Concerned about what?" he asked, trying his hardest to conceal his panic.

"I want to make sure that you're really okay," said Maddie as she surveyed her supplies. "I want to make sure that whatever is inside you, whatever has changed your DNA, isn't dangerous."

Was that really all she wanted? "I'm fine, really," he said in a desperate attempt to change her mind.

"Do you know that for sure?"

He stared at her in silence as she continued to gather her equipment. He knew that there was no way he could possibly change her mind, not when she was set on conducting a scientific study.

A study on _him_ , the ghost she had been pursuing for so long.

"Sit here." Maddie pulled up a chair and patted the top of it a couple times.

Danny didn't move.

"Danny, it's okay. It'll just be a few tests. Come on." Maddie patted the chair again, more insistently.

Danny could no longer meet her gaze as dread coursed through him.

But she was his mother, and she knew who he was now. Perhaps she really was just worried about him. Perhaps it would actually be a good thing to have some tests run on him, especially since he wasn't sure if he'd ever be able to get a physical from a doctor again without raising suspicion. She would be able to figure out if there was anything he should be concerned about.

He slowly moved to the chair and sat down. He leaned over and clasped his hands between his knees as he waited for his mother to begin whatever she planned on doing with him—

— _to_ him?

* * *

(The End! :D )

(jk stay tuned for moar. Or if you're not interested in what happens next, thanks for reading this much, at least! Or thank you for scrolling to the bottom of the page if you didn't actually read. ^^)


	2. Caught up in your derangement

**Author's** **note:** I am still completely in love with the cover art MonsterousThings drew for me. ^^

* * *

 **Objectified**

 **Caught up in your derangement**

The minutes ticked by. Danny didn't really care to know how many as he continued to wait in the chair his mother had pulled up for him. Any length of time here was way too long.

"We'll start easy." Maddie came up to him with a thermometer. "I'm going to take your temperature, okay?"

Danny only nodded as she inserted the thermometer into his ear. He waited, breathed.

She removed the thermometer and studied the result. "Ninety-six point eight. Tympanic measurements tend to be higher than core measurements, so you're probably a little colder than that. It's low, but still more or less normal. Interesting." Maddie recorded the result on a notepad.

"What were you expecting?" asked Danny.

"I would've been surprised, I suppose, if I hadn't been hugging and interacting with you this past year and a half. You've never felt particularly cold to me, so I guess I'm not surprised on that level. But I would've thought that you'd be colder." Maddie shrugged. "But then again, I would've thought that being part ghost was impossible. This is all going to be completely new to me." She held out a hand. "Let me check your pulse now."

Danny gave her his arm. Maddie pressed two fingers against his artery and counted to herself.

"A hundred and twelve." Maddie frowned down at him. "Are you nervous, Danny?"

"A little," Danny admitted.

"Are you nervous about what these tests might reveal?"

He wasn't sure if he could tell her the truth, that he was nervous about just what tests she was going to run on him. "Sorry. I'll try to relax."

He breathed deeply and tried to clear his head, tried to imagine that he was somewhere else, tried to assure himself that nothing bad was going to happen. Her fingers were on his arm again, and he waited for her to count and measure the pulsing of his artery.

"Eighty-eight." Maddie squeezed his shoulder. "Better, but try to calm down, okay?" She jotted down another note before fitting the cuff of a blood pressure gauge around his arm.

"You have one of these?" asked Danny in mild amazement.

"We have a lot of things here. Your father and I have accumulated quite a bit of medical equipment over the years. Ghosts actually have systemic circulation of their own, you know."

"Are you saying this works on ghosts, too?"

"It actually does."

Maddie pressed a button on the monitor. It hummed and droned, tightening the cuff around Danny's arm. He breathed deeply again in an attempt to bring the reading into a normal range.

"One-twenty-eight over eighty-eight," said Maddie. She scrunched up her mouth as she recorded the number.

"Is that…? What is that? Bad?"

"It's a little high." Maddie smiled at him. "But considering your pulse, I'm not surprised. I think you're still just nervous." She patted his shoulder gently. "You're fine. Don't worry."

He wanted to follow her instruction. He didn't want to worry.

But it seemed he had no control over the part of his mind that was panicked about this whole situation.

She listened to his lungs with a stethoscope and measured other vitals, oxygen saturation level, cardiac output, carbon dioxide concentration. He marveled at the equipment she had, equipment that thankfully wasn't invasive. He relaxed as she continued. This wasn't bad at all. In fact, this was really easy. He was starting to feel silly for being so concerned.

"Not too far off from normal," Maddie observed as she looked over her collective findings. "A little unusual, but not as much as I would've expected." She tapped the page a couple of times with her pen. "But I can see why you were so against seeing a doctor. A doctor would be a little confused by all of this, might even have wondered how you were still so healthy and alive despite these results."

Danny recalled how she had set up a doctor's appointment for him that week and how he had vehemently expressed his reluctance to go. But he was not sure how to reply, so he only shrugged.

"Okay. Can you transform for me now?"

Danny hesitated. "Why?"

"I want to see how your vitals differ in your ghost form." Maddie set aside her notepad and crossed her arms as she waited for him.

Danny stared back at her. It was so strange to hear her make this request. It was so surreal that she finally knew his secret after hiding from her for so long.

Still sitting, he looked away and willed his molecules to alter. A bright light engulfed him, imbued his cells with supernatural strength and power. His mind also changed as his thoughts became more erratic and fretful, but he did his best to talk himself back down to a state of calm.

He could feel his mother staring at him. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see that she had uncrossed her arms. But she did not speak.

Danny at last turned his head to see why she wasn't saying anything. Her mouth was open just slightly as she continued to stare at him, her eyes moving up and down his body.

"I still can't believe it," she said. "All along, it was you? You were Phantom this whole time?"

Danny made no reply.

"You're the ghost I wanted more than any other." Maddie's eyes continued to study him. "You're the ghost I had been hunting."

Danny was not sure what he should say, what he could possibly say. Did she want him to say something? Did she want him to agree or confirm?

He just wished she'd stop looking at him like that.

"Do have you have any idea what I wanted to do to you?" Her eyes were everywhere on him but his face, as if she wasn't really talking to him. "Do you have any idea what I've fantasized about doing to you?"

Was he supposed to have heard this last part? She spoke as if she didn't really want him to answer. Should he pretend he hadn't been paying attention?

He didn't want to know what she had fantasized about doing to him. So he ignored it. If he ignored it, then it wouldn't be true.

"And what I did do to you," she murmured. "I almost killed you."

Danny lowered his gaze to the floor.

"I know."

Maddie turned to her equipment and then approached him again with the thermometer. She placed it in his ear for a moment before pulling it back out and reading the result. "Fifty-eight point six." She creased her brow and tapped her notepad a couple times with her pen.

Danny watched her read some other notes. She didn't say anything for awhile. He stayed quiet while she thought.

"That's definitely cold," she finally said, "but still quite a bit warmer than the average ghost. Most ghosts average about forty-six."

"Even with my ice powers?" Danny asked without thinking.

Maddie frowned in confusion. "Your what?"

Danny instantly regretted letting this slip. Just another thing she was going to want to know more about. "Um…I just also thought I'd be colder, I guess."

"It must be because you're not a full ghost." Maddie furiously began to scribble something down. "You must have some human biological properties even when transformed that need more warmth to operate."

She set her notepad aside and placed one hand on his shoulder, the other right on his chest. Danny's eyes widened slightly in this strange embrace. She stayed like that for some time, her chin and cheek brushing against the top of his head. Danny stayed still, his hands trembling.

She smiled down at him and ruffled his white hair affectionately. "You still have a heart, for sure."

Danny looked up at her with an uncertain blush.

"And your face turns green when you blush." Maddie chuckled as she cupped his face. "That's so cute. You really have ectoplasm running through you instead of blood, huh?"

Danny shyly lowered his gaze.

She lifted his arm, then paused. "You're going to need to take this off."

Danny faltered. "What?"

"Your jumpsuit. I can't read your pulse through this material."

"You…want me to take it off? Like all the way?"

"No, no. Just off your arm is fine."

Hesitantly, Danny put his hand to the zipper at his neck and lowered it just enough so that he could slip his left arm out. Maddie lifted the now limp material of his jumpsuit and studied it closely.

"This is so funny." She grinned. "I remember making this exact jumpsuit. Not in this color, though. I mean, I'm pretty sure it was mostly white with black trim when I sewed it together." She rubbed the material against her face, perhaps because she could not feel it through the gloved fingertips of her own jumpsuit. "But I'd definitely know this material anywhere. Jack and I created it to withstand ectoplasmic shocks and radiation.

Danny recalled how he had been wearing this jumpsuit when he was initially hit with a blast from the ghost portal. Indeed, it held up very well, and it continued to do so.

"I was wondering what happened to it." Maddie lifted the front part of his jumpsuit and studied the white emblem. "I don't remember putting this logo on it, though. How did it get there?"

"It's kind of a long story," said Danny, hoping that she wouldn't make him get into it right now. "Basically, Sam designed it and then figured out how to make it stay there permanently."

"Sam." Maddie pursed her lips. "She's also the one who pushed you to investigate the ghost portal in the first place, right?"

Danny winced at the disapproval in her tone. "Um…yeah, but it was still mostly my decision in the end." He turned away. "Sorry about that."

"Don't apologize. It's okay. I'm just glad it didn't kill you." She lifted his bare arm and pressed her fingers against it, counted in her head for some time. "Fifty-two." She wrote down the result. "That's higher than what I've recorded in other ghosts."

Danny considered this information but did not say anything. He wasn't particularly surprised. After all, even in the ghost world, he was considered an anomaly.

"You really are different from other ghosts. I suppose it might be because your ghostly form still has human functions and properties to maintain." She looked over at her equipment. "I'm going to need to run more tests than I thought to know for sure, though."

Danny blanched, but he could not get any words out to protest. What use would it be anyway? His mother always got her way. He was just the kid, and she was the adult who had to win.

"But let's just finish up these easy ones." She fit a blood pressure cuff around his arm. Danny kept his gaze forward as she continued, barely hearing her as she read aloud certain readings and informed him what she was measuring. He just wanted this to be over already.

Something very tight was winding around his bare upper arm. He turned his head to look at it. A tourniquet? "What are you doing?"

Maddie laughed. "I just said that I'm going to draw an ectoplasm sample!"

Danny watched her prepare a needle and a couple vials. How much did she want? He looked away once she began tapping his arm and cleaning it.

"Ready?" she asked.

Danny nodded.

A small poke, a tightening sensation. Danny kept his head turned as Maddie pulled whatever volume of ectoplasm she wanted out of his spectral vein.

"Can you change back now?" she asked suddenly.

The needle was no longer in his arm. Danny looked up to see Maddie labeling vials now containing glowing green liquid.

"I want to get some blood samples from your human form," Maddie explained without meeting his gaze.

Danny sent the mental command to his molecules, which quickly darkened and returned to their human state. His thought processes quieted and calmed. He sighed in relief. Being transformed certainly made him feel powerful, but it was a power that he wasn't sure he was always in complete control of, especially when he was feeling as nervous as he was now.

But that was something he'd rather keep to himself. Not even Sam or Tucker knew just how different he felt in ghost form.

The needle was once again in his arm and filling up more vials with blood this time. Maddie took all of the vials to a machine set up on a counter a little farther away. Her back was to him as she studied the samples.

Danny stayed still for awhile, unsure what to do since she had not given him any instructions. He looked at the staircase leading out of the basement. He wanted to quietly disappear up them. Maybe she wouldn't even notice.

But instead, he simply removed the tourniquet from his arm that she had forgotten to remove herself. Perhaps she was too distracted and excited. Understandable considering that ghost research was her life's work, and he was obviously the most interesting ghostly phenomenon she had ever come across.

His mind wandered as she studied the samples. He tried not to think about what other tests she would want to do. He thought about what Vlad would do in this situation. He smirked to himself. Vlad would probably love for Maddie to handle him in this way. He'd probably suggest some rather intimate tests of his own.

But Vlad had never experienced being experimented on. He had no idea what it was really like.

Danny, though…he knew firsthand what it was like to be restrained and forced to endure whatever procedure his captor inflicted on him, what it was like to be regarded as an object that was only useful for research and the benefit of others. He had managed to escape from all of those situations, but the scarring memories haunted his darkest dreams.

"How fascinating," Maddie said from across the room. She was still bent over looking at samples through the lens of a machine. "When you're human, you have mostly blood circulating with trace amounts of ghostly antigens and spectral antibodies. That might be why your temperature is a little lower, but not so low that it would shut down the healthy operation of the rest of your body and organs."

Danny looked down at himself. He thought about telling her that he also had limited use of his ghost powers in his human form but decided against it. The less she knew, the less she would want to investigate. Hopefully.

"And when you're ghost, you have almost pure ectoplasm running through you with just the tiniest number of blood cells." She wrote something down. "Not sure if that alone could lead to a higher than normal ghost temperature or not. I'll have to check out some other things." She looked at the samples again. "Incredible. Just incredible."

All right. He was incredible. Got it. Could she please just leave it at that and let him go?

Maddie picked up a set of wires and electrodes. "Transform for me again."

Not a request. It sounded far more like an order.

But he was just being sensitive. Of course he still had a choice. She couldn't make him do anything.

He once again changed over into his ghost form because he chose to and for no other reason. Certainly not just because she told him to.

"Huh." Maddie looked at his arm in confusion. "Did you put that back on before you changed back before?"

Danny also looked down at his arm which was once again inside the gloved sleeve of his jumpsuit. "No."

"Then why…?"

"I honestly don't know. This jumpsuit has been ripped or even completely destroyed dozens of times, but it's always back in one piece and fully on me the next time I transform." He shrugged. "It's as if it has ghostly properties of its own."

Maddie chewed the inside of her cheek in thought. "I suppose that could explain why the color changed." She placed her hands on his shoulders as she looked his physique over. "And why it still seems to fit you perfectly despite how much you've grown since first becoming part-ghost. You've put on quite a bit of muscle."

Danny tried his hardest not to blush at this comment. He didn't want her to make any more embarrassing comments about how he looked or how he turned green instead of red.

"Okay, but this time, I actually do need you to take off your jumpsuit all the way."

Well, so much for trying to save himself from further embarrassment.

"Why?"

"Because these need to be against bare skin." Maddie held up the electrodes.

Danny did not move.

"You're wearing something under that jumpsuit, right?"

"Just boxers."

"Well, it's not like I haven't seen you in your underwear before. Or in swim trunks. All the same."

No, this wasn't the same. Not at all.

"Danny, come on." Maddie spoke firmly, pressing him.

There was no way he could prevent an ectoplasmic blush this time. He stood and, without looking at her, lowered the zipper of his jumpsuit so that he could step out of it.

Fully exposed. Entirely vulnerable. He resisted the instinctual urge to raise his hands and cover his face. He had been in so many uncomfortable positions since the acquisition of his ghost powers, but he was sure nothing could top this.

Maddie placed the electrodes on his head, his chest, his neck, his back, his legs. He had no idea why or what she even wanted to measure. He just let her, didn't bother to ask for her reasons. He convinced himself that this would end sooner the less he questioned and resisted.

She took various measurements, made several readings. He could hear the drones and hums of machinery as she worked and wrote and calculated and did whatever else. She asked him to change between his alternating forms. She pinched and poked at his skin in either form, felt him up and groped him all over, drew more samples of whatever she insisted she needed from him.

And as she continued, she spoke less and less. At first, she would tell him what she was doing and when she was going to do it. She would let him know what the results were and whether they were normal for either a ghost or human.

But as the tests went on, she stopped narrating the procedures. She fit devices on him without asking if she could, scraped at his skin for cell samples and placed lead aprons on him for X-rays without a word, stuck needles into him and plucked illusory strands of his white hair without even warning him. She stopped sharing the results she was finding. She walked around him, no longer even making eye contact. Every once in a while, she would say something under her breath, but she was clearly talking to herself and not to him.

As if he were no longer in the room with her.

No, more like she no longer thought of him as someone who could hear or comprehend her.

No, no, rather, more like she didn't care that he was someone who could hear or feel.

Or maybe it was more like…he wasn't some _one_ to her anymore. He was some _thing_.

That couldn't be right. Danny tried to dispel the thought. There he was, being sensitive again. His mother knew who he was now and definitely regarded him as a person.

But then why did he feel as if he was being ignored even though she was constantly around him and touching him?

In his human form and fully clothed again, Danny waited for whatever Maddie was going to do to him next. The end to all of this was still not in sight. She seemed far too feverish and frenzied to stop anytime soon.

He had the power to leave at any time. He could easily turn invisible or intangible and get far away from there in seconds. Or even without his ghost powers, he was still stronger than she was. There was no way she could make him stay there without physically restraining him—

—she wouldn't do that to him, would she—?

—and yet he could not leave. He had to stay because she had told him to stay. He had to stay because she was in charge. She was the parent who had authority over him, and he was the child who had to obey. His whole life, he had been conditioned to believe that his mother always knew what was best for him and that he had to honor her and do whatever she told him to do.

He winced at a sudden prick in his arm. She was sticking yet another needle into him, and he had no idea why.

Why was she doing this to him?

A small tear escaped him, streamed down his face and landed on Maddie's hand. Danny felt her pause, but he could not bring himself to look at her.

"Danny, are you okay?" she asked him.

He shut his eyes tightly, then opened them again. He blinked several times in an attempt to prevent further tears. "Can we stop now?" he begged. "Please?"

She was staring down at him, but he still couldn't look at her. He gazed straight ahead and to the floor.

Maddie at last stepped back, pulling the needle out of his arm as she did so. Danny immediately stood and walked away, walked away from the lab, walked away from _her_.

Upstairs in the living room, he internally fought with himself over what to do.

Run away? Would she hunt him down?

Fly away? Would she shoot him down?

Or did he have to stay because she was still his mother and still in charge of him and hadn't given him permission to leave the house?

If he left, what would the consequences be? Would she be upset with him? What would she do to him then?

He collapsed onto the couch in defeat.

* * *

(This is NOT the end. I know we all love seeing Danny in misery [it's just a fact of the DP fandom], but he'll be getting a relatively nice ending. ^^ There's still one more chapter, so stick around if you're interested!)


	3. The only thing that's real or true

**Author's** **note:** I do so enjoy writing Danny/Maddie. Hope you guys have been enjoying my personal spin on their relationship.

* * *

 **Objectified**

 **The only thing that's real or true**

Breathing deeply, Danny sat on the living room couch, hunched over, head hanging, elbows resting on his thighs.

Was there any chance that it had all just been another of his nightmares and that his mother still had no idea he was half-ghost?

God, he hoped so.

Maddie appeared next to him. He could see her jumpsuit-clad legs, but he did not look up at her.

"Danny? Can I sit with you?"

Danny did not reply, did not even move. Maddie sat beside him and placed a hand on his back. Danny grimaced at her touch.

"I'm sorry, Danny. I didn't mean to go that far."

Danny remained motionless as she started rubbing his back. He hated all of this, hated how motherly and soothing she was trying to be now as if that would negate what she had just done to him. Was he supposed to just be okay with it now that she said she was sorry? Was he supposed to just forgive her because she was touching him so gently now? Did she even really know what she was apologizing for?

Because what she had done to him went so far beyond the tests.

So few regarded him as a person. So few saw him as anything other than a strange entity, an unusual creature that needed to be taken away and examined thoroughly in order to be understood, in order to give him a purpose because he couldn't possibly have one otherwise. He wasn't like normal humans who could just live their lives as they wanted. It was simply their _right_ to live and to be free by virtue of being human.

But he wasn't human, so he apparently didn't have that same right to life and liberty. Because he was clearly not a person as far as anyone could see, it was perfectly fine to use him and strip of him of any freedoms at all. In fact, the only way he'd have any value at all in this human-dominated world was to be useful to other humans in some way, in whatever way they insisted he should be used no matter how painful or emasculating.

And it seemed the same in the Ghost Zone. Since he wasn't fully ghost, other ghosts were keen to use him for their own gain, too.

The leering face of Skulker as he relentlessly chased him. The malicious eyes of Vlad as Danny struggled in ghost-proof restraints. The callous words of the Guys in White as they informed him of their plans to take him away from everyone he loved.

The way he looked at himself in horror the first time he saw his glowing green eyes in the mirror...

And the way his own mother would scream at him and shoot at him and threaten to tear him apart. The way she'd casually discuss with his father at the dinner table the invasive procedures she'd like to put him through.

And now that she knew he was her son, too? Did her feelings toward Phantom change at all? Or was she just excited to know that she didn't have to hunt for him anymore, that he was living right under her roof to be used at her discretion?

He didn't want to believe that. He didn't want to believe that about the woman who raised him and taught him and cared for him and tended to his injuries and nursed him when he was ill and praised him for even his smallest achievements and encouraged him when he was unsure and stayed by his side when he was afraid and loved him no matter how many times he failed and made mistakes.

She had just gotten carried away. She had been a scientist obsessed with ghosts since before he was born, and she only wanted to know more about the first ghost she had ever seen, the ghost that had restored her faith in her work. If she just knew how being used as a specimen made him feel, then she would understand and wouldn't ever try again. It would all be okay. He just had to tell her.

He wanted to give her that benefit of doubt.

Because it was either that or forever feel unsafe with her.

At last, he sat up straight. "That wasn't the first time I've been in that position," he said quietly.

He turned to her. She focused on him with curious eyes.

"I know that you're a scientist and that you just want to learn more about what I am, but…" Danny let out a deep, shuddery breath. "I have nightmares about that sort of thing."

Her eyes widened, her mouth hung slightly open. Danny looked away again and down at the floor as he waited her for to speak next.

"Danny, can you tell me more?"

He raised his head.

"What's it like to be you, Danny?" his mother whispered.

He stared straight ahead as this deceptively simple question resonated in his head.

How could he even begin to answer that?

Where to even start?

He tried to sort it out, tried to figure out what it even really meant.

His eyes and mouth twitched. His diaphragm jolted in a small contraction. He was suddenly seized by laughter that he attempted to keep stifled. He instinctually put a hand loosely over his mouth as he shook with sudden and uncontrollable mirth.

He could see Maddie's perplexed expression in his periphery. He himself had no idea why this was so damn funny to him. Something about the simplicity of the question, something about him not expecting it at all, something about it being a question that actually suggested she did in fact care about him, something about the relief he felt that she would ask it because it meant that maybe she saw him as a person after all.

Something about it being a question that no one had ever asked him before, not even Sam or Tucker or Jazz.

But perhaps the real reason he was laughing was because he knew if he didn't, he'd be crying instead.

Maddie remained silent. Whether it was because she was just waiting for him to calm down or she was too stunned by his reaction was unknown to him. At last, he gulped in a huge breath of air and leaned back. He stared up at the ceiling with an amused grin. "What's it like to be me, you ask?"

Maddie pulled up her legs and propped an elbow up on the back of the couch near his head. "I do ask. Tell me everything."

He started at the beginning with the ghost portal incident and narrated a number of important events in his ghostly existence. His thoughts, his reactions, his concerns. He answered her questions to the best of his abilities, to the extent that he was comfortable answering her. She wanted everything, but there were still things that he wasn't ready to discuss with her just yet, things he wasn't even prepared to tell Sam or Tucker about.

"What are you most afraid of?"

His body involuntarily tensed as a shiver ran through him. A flash of his dark future, his ultimate enemy that he still wasn't convinced was gone.

"I'm not ready to tell you that yet."

But apart from that one question, his words and explanations came so much easier than he would've thought, as if they were a weight inside of him that he could finally pull out and set down, a weight that another person could help him carry.

And his mother never criticized or judged anything. She just listened and nodded and asked clarifying questions. As their conversation progressed, her arm moved and wrapped around him until they were both fully reclined on the couch.

"What do you think of it so far?" Danny asked somewhat sleepily.

Her fingers were gently tangled in his hair.

"I think it's an incredible story," she said, "and I couldn't be happier and prouder to have you for a son."

Danny smiled softly.

"What do _you_ think of it so far?" she asked him.

Danny considered his answer for some time. The thrill of obtaining and mastering a new ghost power. The ghosts that kept returning no matter how many times he pleaded with them to stop hurting the people of his town. The few good ghostly friends he had managed to meet. The genuine fear he felt when he was sure he was going to die or, worse, was sure someone else was going to die due to his own failure. The appreciation he felt when someone actually thanked him for what he did. The increasingly unbelievable excuses he had to concoct for his absences and tardies and late assignments so that he could fulfill his personal obligation to protect the town. The worth and significance he now felt when for so long he thought he would never amount to anything. The agonizing injuries he suffered during battles that kept him awake at night. The exhilaration of flying through the clouds as they stretched beneath the stars.

"There are times I like it," he finally said, "and other times I don't."

He closed his eyes and moved in just a little closer to her.

"But I kind of like it right now," he murmured.

His mind was shutting off, too exhausted from lack of sleep and overwhelming emotions to stay awake any longer. He could feel himself drifting away in his mother's embrace, but he didn't fight it. He could sense her falling asleep as well, but even if she wasn't, he felt safe with her again. He wasn't afraid of her. Not now.

Hopefully never again.

* * *

(Aaaaaaaaaaaaand _now_ it's the end. That's all she wrote. ^^ Thanks so much for reading, and please check out MonsterousThings's Tumblr for more awesome art including the full view of the cover art.)


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